Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

THE CHOLERA OF 1867. 435
expansive, and to fraternize. Throughout the barracks re r
sounded once more the songs, shouts, and that noisy bustle of
life which had entirely ceased for so long a time ; every thing
was changed and revivified.
But in order to form a just idea of the feelings of the soldiers
in those days,
it was necessary to enter the hospitals of the convalescents,
where the rest and silence left their thoughts and
minds at perfect liberty.
Let us enter a moment to give a last greeting to our good
and brave soldiers.
Toward the end of September, that same year,
a soldier of
the pth regiment of infantry wrote me a letter from Catania,
begging me to tell in some military journal what had been done
for his comrades and himself by the officers of his regiment.
He had been ill with the cholera, and was almost well, so wrote
me from a convent where his colonel had established a hospital
for convalescents, and where he had been for more than a
month. "Here we are," says the letter, "after so many perils
and misfortunes, still alive, for a wonder." Then follows a long
description of the convent, situated on a little hill and entirely
surrounded by beautiful gardens, where the convalescents could
go for recreation with a
; spacious court-yard, filled with large
trees, under the shade of which they used to walk a great
part of the day, chatting, reading, or playing at draughts with
stones ! He told me then that each one of them had a cell to
himself with a window on the garden that in
; his, the ivy had
grown about the grating,
"
in through the bars.
and that the branches of trees came
We have a good bed, two chairs, and
have become as fond of the little rooms as if they were our
homes. I keep every thing clean and in order in mine, just like